Facing a challenge ... Lambert Visser with Maggie and his painting. Photo: James Brickwood

They are the same age, 63. Both are artists. Both love their dogs – Smudge and Maggie, respectively. And both have achieved success with paintings of faceless men.

The difference is that the well-established Storrier won this year's $75,000 Archibald Prize for his surrealist self-portrait The Histrionic Wayfarer (after Bosch) while Visser worries whether he will be remembered as the man who copied Storrier.

The face that won ... Archibald Prize winner Tim Storrier with Smudge and his work titled 'The historic wayfarer'. Photo: Wolter Peeters

"My first painting of faceless men in uniform was The Generals, which was selected as a finalist in the Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2003," Visser points out. The Afghanistan war had begun, and Visser remembered his own "distasteful" experiences of being taught how to bayonet an enemy soldier during his national service days.

"My images are about depersonalising the individual by making it faceless," says Visser at his home overlooking Pittwater. "About being able to justify just about anything if you are wearing a uniform and doing it in defence of your country."

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Visser, whose most recent show has just finished at the Robin Gibson Gallery in Darlinghurst, continued working on the faceless theme in works which have been exhibited in the Blake Prize, the Mosman Art Prize and in last year's Gallipoli Art Prize, selected as a finalist by the Herald's art critic, John McDonald.

Visser first contacted the Herald last year after reading a Spectrum profile on Storrier which featured a photograph of him posing in front of a then-unfinished The Histrionic Wayfarer.

He had already become concerned about the similarity between his own work and Storrier's new direction after seeing a catalogue for Storrier's In Absentia exhibition at the Australian Galleries in 2010.

"I went to see Stuart Purves (the director of the Australian Galleries)," Visser says. "I showed him eight or nine of the paintings I'd done using faceless figures. Stuart was surprised, but said, 'It's quite a different representation'. Which it is."

But now Storrier has won the Archibald, Visser wants to make a stand. Not that he accuses Storrier of plagiarising his work. "Not at all. It's not uncommon for painters to borrow imagery from others. Picasso did it all the time.

"But because Tim is so much better known, I don't want people assuming I'm being derivative of him. I have another 15 or 20 works in my head around the institution of marriage using faceless figures.

I don't want people assuming I'm being derivative of him. I have another 15 or 20 works in my head around the institution of marriage using faceless figures. I certainly don't want to be bitchy. There's enough of that in the art world

"I certainly don't want to be bitchy. There's enough of that in the art world."

When asked, Storrier said that he didn't know of Visser or his work. "But then [the idea] is not that rare. What about the Invisible Man, wrapped up in bandages? Remember that?

"It's not the idea, but how it is interpreted [that matters]. I wish him luck, and tell him not to worry."